Comments on First Reactions to Blackboard Buying Wimba and Elluminate

• Why buy both?
• Posted by Anze Sparovec , Regional Director ANZ at Chalk & Wire Learning Assessment on July 7, 2010 at 9:30pm EDT

• The question that needs to be answered is why buy both? I don't see how buying the two biggest players can be a good thing for innovation. Having a collaboration solution makes excellent sense for Bb as you have pointed out. Fundamentally by buying both they are trying to reduce the competition in this space which ultimately means they will have less incentive to develop the product. The right thing would have been to buy the vendor with the best technology and then compete by developing innovative functionality. Ask Angel or WebCT clients how much their products have evolved since Bb bought them.

  http://www.chalkandwire.com

• Monopoly Good?
• Posted by Colin , Ed Techie at Carmel USD on July 7, 2010 at 10:15pm EDT

• I agree. The cost to integrate two code bases (wimba and elluminate) is incredibly prohibitive. The right thing would have been for Bb to have used the money to set up a commission on standards for real time collaboration API's. Then any software company could create tools which would enhance the educational experience. This increased competition would have created a better product for Bb clients (and everyone else). However that is not Bb's goal. Since they have saturated the LMS market and are losing ground to open source alternatives which they cannot purchase (or they would have already), they are focusing on wringing more money out of existing clients by selling them add ons and/or increasing the price of their product based on new features.
  Blackboard is creating a vertical monopoly. They will spin "we will continue to support" for a year or so and then start phasing out open integrations and stand alone web collaboration products.

• Vertical Monopolies are not good
• Posted by Colin , Ed Tech on July 7, 2010 at 10:30pm EDT

• I don't see how vertical monopolies are good. I don't see how removing competition is good for this market. I would prefer open API's and standards which would allow competing vendors to create products that work with any other product that follows the open API. I agree Elluminate and Wimba needed investment, but this isn't investment.

  I agree that integrating web conferencing and real time collaboration into the LMS is a great idea. The old model says that tight integration means that the products are locked together. However a single software product/vendor cannot be the end-all be-all of all clients' needs.

  Instead of leading the way in truly integrating products and investing this money in actual software development, Blackboard is decreasing the number of voices in the choir.

  The only reason it makes sense to spend $116 million on two companies that sell identical products which are expected to bring in $6 million in revenue is to create a monopoly. When are monopolies a good idea (except in some cases for public utilities)?

• What's next after Wimba and Eluminate? Kaltura...
• Posted by Yoni , NA at plymedia on July 8, 2010 at 4:30am EDT

• Sounds like Blackboard now needs two things - a curricular media management system AND a connecting multimedia infrastructure that will tie together all of these tools. Did you check out #Kaltura's integration announcement today? http://bit.ly/9nqQ2j One of the deepest integrations we've seen in Blackboard, and I know they are speaking with Adobe and others too. I suspect there will be more #Blackboard and #Kaltura news coming soon...

• Hmm ... ?
• Posted by David Hopkins on July 8, 2010 at 4:30am EDT

• Something deep within me tells me this is not good for the development of the VLE / LMS / PLN industry. When one organisation holds the big tools like this then it will either (in my opinion) destroy the industry or encourage cheaper/better development. While this could be good news, we are talking about a system that the IT departments decide to buy (to fit their infrastructure and procurement process) not the educators (who know and understand the pedagogy of what the system needs to do to benefit the students).

  I will wait to see if my initial feelings are a load of rubbish or warranted, but I fear for the future.

• Posted by George Kroner on July 8, 2010 at 8:00am EDT

• With respect to the perfect world argument that Blackboard should have purchased only one company and forced the other to compete, has anyone considered the alternative?

  If Blackboard had only purchased one company, there is a high likelihood that the other company would not be able to survive. This would likely not happen because Blackboard would terminate their existing partner agreement and play a heavy-handed legal game. I'd argue that it would happen eventually because Blackboard has (a) inherently more resources to dedicate to the product because it's a larger company, (b) more staying power and less likelihood to go out of business, and (c) the chosen collaboration tool would become the "default option." (a) is obvious looking at employee numbers alone, (b) can be discerned through strong (and public) financials, (c) you have read Nudge, right?

  In the end, this would mean that all schools using "the other" product would still "lose" in the end. In this scenario, existing Blackboard clients with no synchronous collaboration tool will likely benefit (anything has to be better than the built-in collaboration tool), and neither Wimba or Elluminate clients will have to worry about their product heading out of existence. Now, granted those clients probably have other worries at the moment, but particularly since Ray has taken leadership of Blackboard's learning products division we've seen much better follow-through on post-merger product integration. Ask any WebCT client who is trying out the newest release of Blackboard 9.1 - they're actually happy! - or at least the comments on Twitter would have me be believe so. BbConnect finally integrates with Blackboard 9.1. Xythos is actually now the *real* back-end for all course content in 9.1 (not just for clients who license Content System). BbMobile also very quickly became integrated with Blackboard Learn - succeeding at this in well under a year.

  In addition to Ray's willingness to coach his team through these challenges, Blackboard itself as a company is growing up, learning from its past, and realizes that in order to be a successful, large company it must mature and take better care of its clients while also acting appropriately as an industry leader.

  Those of you who are proponents of open APIs and standards, I'd suggest that you look into the resources Blackboard is dedicating to this area. They definitely do not do a good job of marketing this, and they aren't always the quickest to implement them, but they are serious and have committed their top talent to participating in various standards bodies. Blackboard was the first commercial LMS to have a plugin framework, open APIs, and a full-fledged developer program - so go ahead and build that integration to Big Blue Button, or DimDim - and if you feel so passionately about this space, contribute it as an open source project to OSCELOT so that other Blackboard clients can also benefit. (http://projects.oscelot.org) OSCELOT now features over 100 open source LMS plugins, many of which plug into Blackboard or the former WebCT products.

  Good business move aside, the cultures of the good people at both Wimba and Elluminate stand to influence Blackboard for the better - this is something that I look forward to maybe even more than the product integration. My opinion is that this will be a Good Thing.

• I've Got Concerns About Elluminate
• Posted by StevenB on July 8, 2010 at 8:30am EDT

• I can't generalize but I would imagine that there are a fair number of institutions that already had a combination of Bb and Wimba - at least I've experienced this at both my home institution and the one where I've taught as an adjunct. But they behave more as independent systems then a consolidated package. So I'd look forward to further integration of Wimba into Bb.

  I've got more concerns about the future of elluminate. Yes, Adobe Connect does a good job, but I guess I'm just more comfortable with elluminate - although some areas of it could use an update (e.g., discussion board). I wonder what will happen to those who use elluminate but not Bb. If there is a commitment to allow those independent users to keep on using elluminate - and to offer some sort of free but limited version (although a friend had me using DimDim the other day and for a free system is was pretty robust) of the product.

  My home institution could be described as Bb-centric, so I wouldn't be surprised to see us adding elluminate to the growing list of supplementary instructional tools offered here.

• Higher education Vs. Capitalism
• Posted by Jack , IT at Worcester on July 8, 2010 at 8:30am EDT

• So... Where is the FTC and the Antitrust laws in all this? Blackboard must have one helluva lobbying group in their pocket.

• Good move...
• Posted by Andrew , Instructional Designer at University of New South Wales on July 8, 2010 at 10:30am EDT

• Good analysis. Pretty spot on I'd say. I hope the price (assuming the new line is sold separately) is reasonable or they do integrate more as you say. It should be noted that the two products do offer different features so buying both makes sense... Being a BB 9.0 user and long time WebCT user I can only say despite my initial shock over Blackboard taking over WebCT they have eventually started to get things right (despite effectively dumping WebCT product lines and annoying a lot of Vista users). Since our campus was presently trialling Wimba, Elluminate, Adobe and WebEx products this may make the decision easier to say the least... Now if I can just convince the faculty to use it...

• Posted by Denis Zgonjanin on July 8, 2010 at 2:00pm EDT

• If you're using Wimba or Elluminate and don't like this turn of events, try BigBlueButton - http://bigbluebutton.org/. Also, it's free and open source.

• Wimmination of Blackboard
• Posted by Kees van Kuijen , Education and Student affairs at Technical University of Delft on July 9, 2010 at 5:15am EDT

• At last! Sound and vision! in Bb. I always wondered why the old Bbcollaboration tool was this primitiv. I guess nobody ever used it.

• Agree
• Posted by Robert E. Griffin , Asst. Director, Distance Learning at Saint Francis University (Loretto, PA) on July 9, 2010 at 9:45am EDT

• Finally, someone is commenting on the merger that is not running scared. This is a good time to be involved in distance learning. Major companies are coming together to blend learning tools that will make it easier for students to access the educational opportunities that we provide for them. I applaud Blackboard for taking the risk (and the earlier, and less heralded, step of bringing mobile platforms to the table) and advancing the agenda. This quasi-merger may end up not being successful, but if it is education, has taken a major step forward. Yes, our costs may increase. But the likelihood is that the tools will work a whole lot better. If it doesn't work, there is always Moodle. Grab the bull by the horns and let's all go for a ride...

• Kaltura Response to Wimba and Elluminate Acquisitions
• Posted by Leah , Kaltura at Kaltura on July 10, 2010 at 7:00am EDT

• Here's our perspective.... http://bit.ly/bQxtIO

• Blackboard vs. Moodle
• Posted by Elaine , Instructional Designer at UCLa on August 7, 2010 at 7:00pm EDT

• What is your opinion on the possibility of Blackboard buying out Moodle? Is that legally possible?

  Thanks,

  Elaine